Life After Warfare: How a Digital Map Could Help Revive Mogadishu

Photo: Feisal Omar/Reuters

Think “Mogadishu” and you probably picture Black Hawk Down, a feral city of bombed-out buildings patrolled by thugs in machine-gun-equipped pickup trucks. And until a couple of years ago, you’d be right. Today the Somali capital is at peace, but decades of war destroyed its informational soul—the systems that keep data on tax collection, property ownership, road repair, and so on that let a city function as a city. Mitchell Sipus is trying to recapture that data. He’s an urban planner running a municipal project to digitally map Mogadishu, encoding not just geography but also businesses, infrastructure, and people. The technology works, but can a map tame what’s arguably the most dangerous city on earth? Sipus thinks so.

Wired: How did you end up working in Mogadishu?

Sipus: I did graduate work in conflict and postwar reconstruction, and I started looking at Mogadishu in particular because, of all the cities in the world, it has been the most screwed. It’s hard to even say what the population is—estimates vary between 500,000 and 3 million. For two decades the government that the international community recognizes had control of only four city blocks. The rest was all independent warlords and then, later, a militant group called al Shabab. So how did everyone living in that city manage to survive?

When al Shabab withdrew from Mogadishu in August of 2011, I had just moved to Afghanistan, and I was actually disappointed—like, oh no, I went to the wrong war. And then I got an email from the Mogadishu mayor’s office; the municipality was looking for people to contribute to the reconstruction process. They were frustrated. As the mayor put it, the aid agencies had been there for the entire war, so why should we trust them? So I got on a plane.

Sipus: Well, I started out in art and design, where there’s a premium on creative problem solving. I still live in Afghanistan, so I get to see the outcomes of wrong decisions—you can import people and money, but sometimes you make the problem a lot worse. Most people who work in Mogadishu think of Somalia as a humanitarian crisis or as a military security operation. And I was thinking about the citizens. I think the mayor really appreciated that.

So you pitched him a map?

Sipus: The very first day I walked into the mayor’s office there was a hand-drawn paper map, 6 feet by 3 feet, hanging on the wall. That was basically the only useful map of Mogadishu. There were no birth certificates, no drivers licenses, no business registrations, no tax-collection system. I realized that we could create our own map that would also be a database for businesses and projects. The map could be a means to measure problems and redistribute resources. That’s really what the map is about.

How will the process work?

Sipus: We do geolocated surveys—surveyors fill them out on a phone or iPad or whatever and an app geotags the answers to embed in the map. So we’ll go door-to-door. I found a business, Spatial Networks, that collects spatial data and sells it. They’ve worked in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I pulled them in because a lot of Chinese companies would invest in Somalia if they had better information.

We’re not just trying to make a map. I mean, we get a map, and that’s cool, but through this map we are creating a business-registration system. We are creating a system for houses to have a title. There’s a census component. What condition is this building in? Is there a business there? Who’s the owner? Where are markets? Wells? There’s infrastructure left over from when the Italians operated Somalia, sewers from 1950. A lot of them just need to be cleaned out; they’re full of sand. Right now there’s none of that information.

Urban planner Mitchell Sipus in his home city of Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: Lorenzo Tugnoli

How far have you gotten?

Sipus: Spatial Networks has already done a lot of the satellite digitization. We have a unique base map. The next step is to match the people and the places to it. We’re kicking off the data-collection process right now.

What happens when you’re done? Who gets the data?

Sipus: That’s a real concern. The city can use this to become a better city. But many of the local-level politicians were warlords two years ago. It’s the same people. What are they going to do if suddenly they have a map that outlines the tribal distributions in the city or what markets are more successful? I have to make sure this data remains secure and is not abused. It’s an important tool for the city to move forward, but it could also make the city go back. That’s why providing training and working closely with the administration is so important.

In the end, will residents be able to get the map on their phones, let’s say?

Sipus: In Mogadishu, I don’t think 3G will be available soon. I think it was something like $130 for a 5K to 12K Internet connection for an office. There’s great cell phone coverage, though. It’s difficult because there isn’t the digital infrastructure in Mogadishu to fully leverage this technology. But one thing I learned in Afghanistan is that those technologies will be there. When I moved to Afghanistan in 2011, a 1-megabyte shared Internet connection cost $1,500, and now that same connection is $100. There was no 3G; now you have that in all of Kabul.

You said it’s relatively easy to deploy data collectors. How secure is the city?

Sipus: That’s the hardest issue for me to navigate. In Afghanistan, if I put on a hooded sweatshirt and don’t say anything, I can walk around fairly freely and nothing happens. In Mogadishu, it’s an entirely different situation. It’s stressful. Every time you go anywhere you have a pickup truck of young soldiers. When I do get the opportunity to go somewhere, I usually can’t stay for more than 15, 20 minutes. You’re constantly in this position where you’re not sure, should I go out tonight? Should I walk down these roads? Can I spend time walking around meeting people? If I do that, can I come back tomorrow? It’s exhausting. On the other hand, when I first showed up, al Shabab had only been gone a handful of months, and it was like Mad Max.

In some ways what you’re building is more advanced than what most cities have—policy and governance infrastructure isn’t geo-linked in the US.

Sipus: Right, we can fuse them. We don’t have to have separate systems. We can create a single streamlined product using open source components. That’s only part of making this work, but we already have all the tools. But this isn’t just about reinforcing city government. That’s a major object, but it’s also about creating new markets. People have to have jobs, livelihoods. I’m hoping through this mapping process we can build a foundation.